Bob

I love the recording options in MCE. On my TiVo, I can specify first run or all; on MCE, I can add to that by channel and station. In this age of syndication, it’s great to be able to tell your PVR to only record a program when it’s on channel 7 without having to resort to setting up a manual recording.

> I have to restart the Media Center every second day. It’s very unstable.

OK, I’ll admit that I have a twice weekly defrag/reboot scheduled task set up, but I think that’s just good practice on any computer, much less one that’s constantly writing and deleting files on the hard drive. And it’s not always Microsoft’s issue that there are drivers that misbehave or programs with memory leaks. Can MCE be more stable? Sure. My Linux-based TiVo runs 24/7 without rebooting and it’s been rock solid for the 5 years I’ve owned it. But MCE, with a little automated maintenance, is getting pretty close.

I think it is VERY easy to use, but I realize what its boundarires are. I am not going to try to edit photos and video from within MCE using a rmeote control. For these tpyes of tasks, I easily exit to XP and do what I need.

I don’t think this is a Media Center issue … as my family’s resident
“computer guy”, it would seem that _all_ computers require one geeky
person for proper maintenance. ;)

> I think a lot of the frustrations that ‘hobbyists’ have about Media
> Center is that the interface was designed for every day users, like
> our mothers, and doesn’t offer the advanced features that hobbyists
> have come to expect from other programs.

Maybe, but to your credit, you _do_ have an SDK …

-Derek

Won’t support EXIF, even in Vista? Is it really complicated or something?

“I’d also suspect that the majority of Media Center users do their photo acquisition and triage at their desktop where it is much easier to perform functions like rotate, crop, etc.”

Well, if you don’t support anything like this, then of course they will…self fulfilling prophecy.

“Media Center is simply not optimized around doing these tasks for large amounts of content.”

Not optimised for detecting an EXIF tag and rotating a picture when showing it? Hmm. Does that need a lot of optimisation?

Of course, I second the ‘requires daily rebooting’ comment, as I’ve mentioned here before. I’ve installed all the updates now, and it’s still the same. I never noticed slowdowns before setting up a scheduled reboot – the system just used to cock up its connection to the guide database on a regular basis, and then fail to record anything/allow anything else to be scheduled until rebooted. I’m starting to feel like a broken record though.

MCE as a platform is what makes the PC based DVR worth the idiosyncrasies. Because you own the box, you own the content. Check out DVRMSToolbox (http://www.bluwiki.org/go/DVRMSToolbox_User_Guide), it provides this feature w/o user intervention.

I can say as a long time beta tester and someone who loves the changes. I, like you hope that things work out in the long run, but as it stands I still have to rely on MC2k5 for my day to day use.

The problem isn’t Microsoft, its the driver manufacturers who seem content to drag their feet. I can’t imagine how much further we would be along if the drivers were more stable and more frequently updated.

The polish is starting to show in the UI. You folks really continue to outdo yourselves… there isn’t a build that doesnt come that things dont get better, faster, more stable etc.

Heck a few short months ago I couldn’t even install on my MC box… its come a LONG way. Keep up the great work.